


Hemingway's Typewriter

by harper_m



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:44:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harper_m/pseuds/harper_m
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Myka and HG fall victim to the influence of a potentially fatal artifact. Pete will do all he can to save them, but in the end, it might not be up to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hemingway's Typewriter

**Author's Note:**

> Be advised, this fic makes mention of suicide.

This absolutely wasn’t her scene. She was better off in the library or on the ward, where she was surrounded by either silence or the soft, hushed moans of men too insensate to make demands. So the nightclub, tucked away on a small side street that had somehow managed to escape annihilation in the blitz raids that seemed to come nightly, was overwhelming. People were packed into the space; uniforms abounded, a variety of styles and colors. Navy, khaki, olive green, Brits, Americans, Canadians, with a band and a sultry jazz singer in the corner and girls slipping through the crowd with bottles of beer and packs of cigarettes for sale. The clink of glasses and the murmur of conversation competed with the muted, mournful wail of a trumpet and the hushed tinkle of a piano and there was too much _life_ to it.

It wasn’t that Myka didn’t appreciate life. She just liked it in moderation.

She was alone in the corner, abandoned by the other nurses from her ward. She’d finally succumbed to their cajoling, had joined them as they spilled out of the hospital, their voices almost painfully loud in comparison to the stillness they’d just left. As much as she wanted to stay in, she’d let them drag her out of the apartments they shared. Out of her nurse’s uniform and into her best dress, the one they’d held up in front of her, teasing her about how beautiful she looked and pulling curls down to frame her face even as she blushed. And now they were twined around soldiers and sailors, on the dance floor and at the bar, and she was waiting for the right time to tell just one of them that she was leaving before she slipped out of the door.

She almost didn’t see her at first. Myka was tall enough for her gaze to pass straight over her head, though upon second glance, there was something about the woman that elevated her, that made her much more expansive and vibrant than her relatively petite frame should allow. They’d been in London, and she’d been in the hospital, long enough to recognize the muted blue gabardine as that of an officer in the RAF, but the usually stark lines had been exquisitely tailored to hug curves that should have, but didn’t, seem incongruous with battle dress.

And she was standing right in Myka’s way, smiling up at her and holding out a glass of champagne.

“If you didn’t look as if you were ready to bolt at the slightest provocation,” the woman’s voice was low, intimate, “I would ask you to dance.”

Myka was caught so off guard that she didn’t answer. Instead she stared at the outstretched hand, with its glass of wildly bubbling champagne.

“Well, go on then,” the woman said, pushing the glass forward again. “There aren’t many bottles left in London at the moment. It would be a shame to let this go to waste.”

Manners kicked in without her permission, prompting Myka to take the glass. In belated defiance, she didn’t drink. Instead, she eyed the woman warily, uncertainty putting her instantly on the defensive.

The woman took a step forward, now inches away, and Myka found that she couldn’t look away from her eyes. Slight crinkles at the corners gave her a mischievous look, but there was something about her – an air of mystery and loss – that added depth to her gaze. It gave the impression of levels, one on the surface and others buried much deeper; curiosity got the better of her, and Myka paused just long enough to make it seem as if she was staying.

“I haven’t seen you here before,” the woman said, flirtatious and bold. There was an ease to her that intimated that she could hold up a one-sided conversation all night if necessary, and nimbly. Normally Myka would have been aggrieved on principle, seeing the easy display of something she could never possess.

Instead, she was surprised to hear a reply spilling past her lips. “I’ve never been here before.”

The woman’s smile deepened. “Ah. An American.”

Despite not quite knowing why, Myka blushed.

“I don’t know why such an enchanting creature has confined herself to the corner, but I suppose I shouldn’t question my good fortune.” The woman leaned even closer, so close that Myka could feel the wall hard behind her and the heat of the other woman seeping through the fabric of her dress. “I think I’m going to pretend you were waiting for me.”

Myka was never flirted with blatantly. She was flirted with in subtle ways, with small smiles and appreciative glances that, more often than not, faded away when the originators of said smiles and glances found themselves trapped in conversation with her. Book smarts, it seemed, were not a highly valued trait among the flirtatious set. “I was waiting for my opportunity to leave.”  A moment before she’d been plotting her pathway to the door, and now, she was reluctant to go. Now, as the band slid into something slow and sensual, she found herself looking longingly at the dance floor, suddenly a wistful wallflower waiting desperately for a partner.

Instead of pulling away as Myka feared she would, the woman’s smile deepened further, exposing dimples that had the impossible effect of making her look even more dashing. “Even better,” she said cheerfully, unfazed. “I’ll walk you.”

Flustered, Myka took a long drink of champagne, nearly choking. It’d grown warm in her hand, and she hadn’t had alcohol the entirety of her time in London. She coughed to cover it, but her watering eyes gave her away.

Somehow, a hand insinuated itself between the wall and her back to rub in a soothing circular pattern. “Shall I fetch your coat?” the woman asked, as if she’d done it a hundred times before. And without further thought, as if it, too, was a natural response, Myka nodded yes.

Outside, the night air was crisp. They walked with their hands jammed deep in their pockets through dark streets lit only by the light of the moon.

“I don’t even know your name,” Myka said, and laughed at the absurdity of the situation.

“Squadron Leader Wells,” the woman said with mocking formality, pausing long enough to sketch a bow. Her voice softened back to the playful, come-hither thing it had been back at the club. “But, you can call me Helena.” She’d pulled on her uniform cap as they’d left the club, eyes now hidden in shadow, and it made her seem wistful. “I’m on leave, here in London for another two weeks.”

Myka tried for impassive, disinterested. “Oh?”

Helena’s grin indicated she’d failed. “I don’t suppose I could interest you in alleviating my crushing loneliness in the upcoming days, could I? I am quite by myself in the city.”

“You, lonely?” Myka said, hiding a smile behind her fingers. “I bet you don’t stay alone for very long, no matter where you are.”

Something in Helena’s face seemed to harden. “You’d be surprised.”

******

Pete’s Farnsworth buzzed just as he rounded the corner to see Myka and HG sprawled on the floor. “Artie? Oh, crap, man. This is bad. Very, very bad.”

Artie stared out at him expectantly from the Farnsworth’s visual display. “Are you going to leave me out on the curb waiting for the carriage all night, Cinderella, or are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

At Pete’s look of confusion, Artie muttered, “Never mind. We had a bit of a flare-up in the Brothers Grimm section.”

“You mean the guys who…”

“Pete!” Artie interrupted. “Is something very bad or not?”

“Yes, bad,” he said, nodding vigorously before swinging the Farnsworth around so that Artie could see the crumpled figures on the floor. “Out cold, just like the others.”

“Are they just unconscious, or are they in a coma?”

Pete shrugged. “How am I supposed to know the difference?”

“Well, see if you can wake one of them up,” Artie snapped, before shutting down the Farnsworth connection.

This wasn’t the kind of thing he did. Myka did this. She knew what to check for, knew the answers.  She was the one who noticed and cared about details. He was the dashing kind of hero. She was the conscientious stick in the mud kind of heroine. It was the way they worked.

“Myka,” he said, kneeling beside her. He shook her gently and, when that didn’t work, with a little more force. “Come on, Myka. If you don’t wake up, I’m going to touch every single thing in here, and you won’t be here to save me when an artifact makes me think I’m under attack from an army of evil, terrorist chipmunks. I’m going to make a fool of myself, and you won’t be here to stop me. Or, to watch.”

Nothing.

He’d only seen it in movies and he didn’t especially want to try it, but the situation was getting dire. So, he closed his eyes, looked away, and lightly tapped her cheek.

Again, nothing.

“C’mon,” he whined. “Really? It’s ice cold water to the face after this, so you might want to rethink this coma thing. I’ll do it. I mean, I’ll have to find a bucket and a sink and maybe a freezer first, but I’ll do it.”

Myka remained motionless. And it wasn’t that he hadn’t been feeling panicked before, but the longer she continued to lay there –the longer they both continued to lay there – the harder it was for Pete to pretend like the vibe he was getting wasn’t very, _very_ bad.

******

She couldn’t remember how Helena had coaxed her out onto the dance floor.

_//I got a letter today_  
Just about noon  
She said, Don't worry, I'll be home soon  
Everyday will be like a holiday  
When my baby, when my baby comes home// 

“I don’t think I know this one,” Helena murmured, tightening her grip around Myka’s waist. She was dressed casually tonight, out of uniform in tight brown trousers, a thick cream silk shirt, matching brown braces, and knee high boots.

Myka opened her mouth to reply, but the words were cut short by the soft press of Helena’s lips against the base of her throat.

She immediately flushed scarlet. “Helena,” she gasped, scandalized. She looked around quickly, searching the faces around them for hints of censure, but it was as if no one had even noticed.

“No one cares, darling,” Helena murmured, “and I couldn’t help myself. Don’t be cross.”

And it was, indeed, hard to be angry at Helena, especially when she smiled so winsomely. And anyway, what she’d said seemed to be true. No one cared, no one watched them in repudiation or horror. The floor was full of gently swaying couples, each living in a world with a total population of two.

“Smile for me,” Helena chided gently. “It gets very cold up there, high in the sky. Give me a memory to keep me warm.”

“Is it very dangerous?” Myka asked, though she already knew the answer. At the hospital where she worked, the beds were full of soldiers and marines, not pilots. Pilots weren’t often injured during battle; they came back mostly whole or they didn’t come back at all.

Helena’s smile turned roguish. “Only for everyone else.”

“But…”

A finger pressed gently to her lips silenced Myka. “I have two weeks to forget about those sorts of things,” Helena said, “and a beautiful woman in my arms to fill my head with much more pleasant thoughts. I’d be a fool to dwell on anything other than the present.”

“You don’t even know me.”

The hand on Myka’s back slipped upward until Helena’s fingers were playing with the soft hair at the nape of Myka’s neck. “No, but I want to learn everything. Tell me your secrets, and I’ll tell you mine. Map them out on my skin, and I’ll keep them safe for you.”

Had someone else said something so audacious to her, Myka would have laughed in her face. She knew enough about herself to know she wasn’t one of those girls who found herself swayed by honeyed words. She was a pragmatist, with a pragmatist’s unromantic heart. Poets didn’t write sonnets about her beauty, and she didn’t want them to. At most, she’d aspire to a short story, and then only if the white knight swept in to find himself summarily shown straight back to the curb because the situation had already been quite competently handled.

Now, though, she blushed. “You’re very forward.”

Something passed over Helena; it was cold and angry, gone as soon as it appeared. “I’ve wasted a lot of time. I have too many regrets already. No sense in adding more.”

“Regrets?”

Helena smiled warmly and pulled her somehow impossibly closer. Myka had to tilt her head down even more sharply to maintain eye contact; with Helena staring back up at her, intent clear in her expression, she had no excuse for not pulling away other than that she wanted Helena to kiss her as badly as Helena wanted to do it.

For a moment, the noise of the band faded into the background. Her perception narrowed to a handful of things: Helena’s fingers slipping down her neck to dip beneath the collar of her dress; Helena’s other hand pressed hard to the middle of her back, fingers splayed wide, keeping them pressed closely together; the contours of Helena’s body, and the way she had to strain upward to close the distance between them; the softness of her lips as she coaxed Myka’s own apart.

When they separated, Helena looked up at her warmly, her words soft. “Not any longer.”

Myka looked at her in confusion, and Helena laughed. It was bright and easy, not mocking but joyous. “You’re adorable, darling,” she said, reaching up to brush a curl away from the side of Myka’s face.

When Myka blushed, Helena kissed her again.

******

Pete didn’t mean to sound quite so angry. It was the combination of terror and frustration that did it, but still, he was aware it wasn’t necessarily productive.

“No, Artie, I don’t happen to know what caused it. I wasn’t in here when it happened, and no one remembered to put out a note explaining things in a way even I could understand.” He paused, something catching his attention out of the corner of his eye. “A note. Wait, Artie, there’s a note.”

There, trapped beneath Myka’s hand and almost hidden, was a folded rectangle of white. He pulled it free, unfolding it to reveal a standard sheet of paper with a short, cryptic note centered atop the page.

I’m sorry.

He held it up in front of the Farnsworth for Artie to see.

“I mean, it’s not a helpful note. It’s kind of the opposite of a helpful note. You got anything here, Artie?”

Claudia’s face popped up in the background. “Sorry for what? Who’s sorry?”

Pete shrugged.

“And what’s with the old-school font?”

At the question, his brow wrinkled. “I don’t think…” He ran his fingers over the type. “I can feel the imprint. This was written with a typewriter.”

“Who would want to do that? It’d take, like, 5 minutes just to get the paper in the right place.”

“Can the two of you please be quiet for a minute,” Artie snapped.

Onscreen, Claudia glared at Artie.

“You have an idea of what we might be dealing with here, Encyclopedia Brown?”

Artie’s expression was grave.

“I think I might.”

******

Myka threw her head back, curls whipping around her face. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said. She had to put her lips by Helena’s ear to be heard, and there was something about the tickle of the other woman’s long hair against her skin that made her feel more alive than she had in months.

Since she’d volunteered for duty, Myka had rarely left the hospital. The other nurses on the ward had been shocked to learn that she was actually planning to take her day of leave. Had they been there to see her climb onto the back of the Helena’s motorcycle, the gossip would have made it through the wards before breakfast. She would have spent the week watching twosomes skirt by her, whispering behind the protective shields of their hands and trailing scandalized giggles behind them.

Helena’s reply was a throaty laugh, and Myka turned her face up to the sun. She closed her eyes, felt the heat of it and the whip of the wind against her. She was flying, her only anchor to the earth the grip she had around Helena’s waist. London was at their backs, growing small in the distance. The hum of the motorcycle’s engine was hypnotic, and as the miles passed beneath their tires, Myka leaned forward, cheek pressed to Helena’s shoulder.

She hadn’t realized the hold the war had on her until she felt its grip start to loosen. For once, her mind was free of the memories she hadn’t realized she always carried with her. Gone were the ghosts of young men so still and wan against the stark white of the hospital sheets. Boys, really, with angular features not yet formed into the hardness of manhood, their chests rising and falling with slow regularity as they struggled to hold onto life.

There was Helena now, and she was warm, vibrant, and alive.

The sun was past its crest when they slowed. Helena nosed off of the main road and onto a narrow, pitted, gravel lane. The whine of the motorcycle’s engine was loud against the silence as Helena wound her way up the incline, and as they rounded the corner, Myka caught sight of the lake spread out beneath them. There was a small cottage at its shore, a thin line of smoke rising from its chimney. Aside from that far away incursion, they were alone. The forest was behind them, the trailing slope of the mountain beneath them, and it was huge and open in a way that made her feel insignificant.

Her voice was a reverent whisper in the silence that took the place of the noise of the motorcycle’s engine. “Helena, it’s beautiful.”

The curve of Helena’s smile was barely visible as she turned back to look at Myka. “I had hoped you’d think so.”

It was amazing, all that Helena had managed to bring with them: a worn plaid blanket, two thick ceramic mugs, a bottle of wine, half of a loaf of bread, a quarter of cheese, and two apples, each a burnished, deep red. “It’s not much,” she said, with a smile Myka found adorably shy.

They laid the blanket out beneath the branches of a wide maple tree. There was a soft covering of leaves on the ground, each as red as their apples, and enough chill in the air to remind them that fall was coming to a close.

Myka relaxed back onto her elbows, looking up at the spread of branches above her. They were stark against the startling blue of the sky. “You can almost forget,” she said wistfully, letting her eyes drift shut. Against her lids, the image reversed, the branches razor shards of white against black.

“I can’t.” Helena’s voice was surprisingly sharp. When Myka turned to her, it was to see Helena visibly smoothing away the hint of a snarl. She blinked once and forced a smile, but she couldn’t hide the tension in her shoulders or the anger in her eyes.

Myka reached for her unconsciously, her fingers stroking down Helena’s cheek. “Helena? What is it?”

Helena blinked again, and her forced smile widened. “Nothing. Just… war. Let’s not talk of it.”

Concern softened Myka’s expression. “I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”

Consternation flitted across Helena’s features, the words coming without her leave. “I try to remember what it was like before, but it’s as if there is nothing else. I know there must have been happy times, people I loved, but I try to call them to memory and all I can see is death all around me. Death in my hands, in the barracks, in the skies beside me.” She shook her head, as if she could chase away her thoughts. “I’ve had my fill of death.”

Helena’s words resonated within Myka. A better tomorrow would come, she knew, but at what price? She watched boys younger than her die every day in some of the worst ways imaginable, and as soon as the bedding beneath them was stripped and replaced, someone else was there to take the empty space.

At the touch of Helena’s fingers against her chin, Myka jumped. “But now there’s you, darling,” Helena said. She smiled and inched closer, and Myka felt a blush trace along her cheeks. “I’d much rather make new memories with you than dwell on the old ones.”

Helena’s lips were soft against hers, her hair silky under Myka’s touch. She’d been kissed before, but never the way Helena kissed her. When Helena kissed her, Myka forgot about the horrors of the hospital, the chill in the air, and the rules that said she wasn’t supposed to allow Helena to pull her so close.

The mugs clinked gently as they shifted. Leaves rustled, an unexpectedly sensuous susurration, and Myka shivered. The cloth of the blanket was soft and worn against the skin of her back, her focus on the spread of naked branches above her hazy now. Helena’s shoulders shifted beneath her fingers, and she dug her fingertips into the smooth skin. Myka wondered at it, how Helena’s naked skin against her own could feel both daring and comfortable all at once. She’d had other lovers, but it’d been so very long. She’d forgotten this, or maybe she’d never known it. Had it felt like this before? Had she wanted so much, and so deeply?

Her hands slid down Helena’s back, over muscles and curves, and she pulled the other woman to her. It felt right to be doing this in the open, in the sunshine. It felt like she was finally where she was supposed to be. Helena’s lips were on her throat and Helena’s hand was slipping between her legs, and she shuddered. Goosebumps chased a path across her skin, the temperature seeming to drop even as the heat between them intensified. There was the faint, sharp hint of wood smoke in the air.

Myka moaned, grabbed a handful of the picnic blanket, and arched up against Helena.

Much later, they ate slices of cheese and apple and watched one another, pleased yet shy. Afternoon had drifted into evening unobserved, and as they watched, the sun disappeared over the crest of the far treeline. As if it had always been there, music drifted up to them from the cottage below, slow and haunting.

_//In restless dreams I walked alone_  
Narrow streets of cobblestone  
'Neath the halo of a street lamp  
I turned my collar to the cold and damp  
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light  
That split the night  
And touched the sound of silence// 

Helena was beautiful, silvered by the light of the moon. She’d pulled on her jacket and Myka had wrapped the blanket around herself, hair loose around her shoulders. The chill of earlier had turned into cold, but Myka couldn’t remember ever feeling more at peace. “Let’s stay here forever,” she said impulsively. 

“I wish that was possible.” With a sly smile, Helena slid the jacket from her shoulders. She crawled over to Myka with an unconscious grace and sensuality Myka knew she could never replicate. Where Helena was comfortable in her skin, Myka was hesitant. “Is there room in there to share?”

The blanket was barely large enough for one, much less two, but with Helena pressed so closely to her, Myka hardly noticed the cold. “I mean it,” Myka said, wrapping her arms around Helena and holding her close. They were an intimate tangle, like two halves of a whole. “We could disappear together.”

She shivered at the press of Helena’s lips against her throat and the way her words brushed against her skin. “If only it was so easy as that.”

Unbidden, tears filled Myka’s eyes. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Fingers linked with her own as Helena pulled their joined hands up to rest against Myka’s chest. “I didn’t make Squadron Leader on my good looks alone,” Helena said gently, pressing her cheek into the crook of Myka’s shoulder. “I believe I’m competent enough to make it through this war alive.”

Myka laughed sadly, the sound echoing through the night air. “I’m not so sure that bullets care much about your competence.”

“If I’m good enough at what I do, their opinion shouldn’t really matter.”

It was ridiculous, Myka knew. They’d only just met, but still, the thought of Helena in one of her hospital beds brought a thick knot of emotion to her throat she couldn’t dispel. She had to blink back tears, turning her face to the side so that Helena couldn’t see.

“Myka,” Helena said softly, indulgently. Her hand was on Myka’s cheek, and there was no way to mistake the wetness of tears against her fingertips.

Myka flushed with embarrassment. “I don’t know why I’m being like this.”

“In a perfect world, I’d never leave you, but that’s not what we’ve been given. I doubt there’s any such thing.”

This happened to the other girls, Myka thought. They were in and out of love so quickly that she’d never believed it could be real. It was the hospital, she’d thought. They were young and silly, caught up in the tragic romance of it all. Their world was full of dashing heroes, replaceable replicas in well cut uniforms, each on their way to save the world.

Never her, though.

“Come on, then,” Helena murmured. “I’m chilled to the bone. Let’s go see if our friends in the cottage have a bedroom they’re willing to spare.”

She let Helena pull her to her feet. She dressed without paying attention to what she was doing and helped collect the things that had scattered across their perfect patch of earth. There was heartbreak headed her way, she knew. It was in Helena’s smile and the way she tangled their fingers together.

“We’ll come back here one day,” Helena said, looking up at the moon. Her words were a promise. “After.”

Myka wished she could believe it.

******

There was absolutely nothing comforting about the rhythmic beeps of the heart rate monitors on either side of the room. Three doctors were huddled in the hallway, holding a hushed conference on the sudden outbreak of unexplained comas that had been gathering momentum over the past couple of weeks. The other cases had died, and now there were two women stricken at the same time. Pete already knew the others had died – it was how they’d picked up on the pattern in the first place – but catching snippets like ‘call the CDC’ and ‘conduct an outbreak investigation’ didn’t make him feel better in the slightest. There was an outbreak, no doubt, but scientists and questionnaires weren’t the answer.

He nearly jumped out of his chair at the buzz of the Farnsworth.

“Artie, what do you have for me?”

On the other end of the connection, Artie was grave. “I think I have an idea about what’s causing all of this.” He looked down and grimaced. “Hemingway’s typewriter.”

“Hemingway?” Pete’s brow crinkled in confusion. “Like the writer?”

“Exactly like the writer.”

“So, what? They got hit on the head by a typewriter?”

It was a sign of how incredibly serious things were that Artie didn’t even roll his eyes. “There was only one account in the records of anyone surviving the effects of the artifact. Things…” He swallowed hard. “Things don’t look good. Toward the end of his life, Ernest Hemingway went through a long period of significant physical and mental decline and eventually committed suicide. Up until the very end, he continued writing. He traveled to Cuba and Spain. He rediscovered manuscripts from when he was a young man and started on a memoir. Everywhere he went, he took his typewriter. It was with him through everything, right up to the very end.”

Pete rubbed at his forehead. Literature was Myka’s thing, not his. “What exactly does this typewriter do?”

“A message typed on it puts the, uh, the victim in a dream state. They don’t know that what’s happening to them isn’t real. They find themselves inhabiting a story Hemingway could have written, but it feels like real life to them. Eventually, his depression permeates everything and they...” Artie choked on the words. “They want to kill themselves. If they commit suicide in the dream, they die. That’s why they go into comas and never wake up.”

The air left Pete’s lungs. “So, what? They just dream themselves to death?” he asked, voice strangled. “But you said there was someone who made it, right? Someone who came out of it?”

Artie shook his head sadly; he looked like he’d aged five years in the past hour. “Yes, but there’s nothing  you can do,” he said gently, dropping his eyes. “Myka and HG have to realize it isn’t real. The interviews with the survivor say that there were small clues that let him know that things weren’t right. There were things that didn’t fit, and once he realized it, he was able to wake himself up.”

“Okay. Clues.” Pete felt desperate hope move through him. “That’s something. We have to get them clues.”

“It doesn’t work that way.” Artie pinched the bridge of his nose, dislodging his glasses. “Pete, you can’t do anything but wait.”

Pete snapped the Farnsworth shut and scowled. On his left, Myka lay as still as HG did on his right. Neither moved, twitched, or made even the slightest of noises.

The hell with waiting. He had an artifact to find.

******

Helena’s uniform shirt was unbuttoned. Beneath it, she was naked. From the bed, Myka watched her closely, the fabric alternately hiding and revealing the curve of Helena’s breast and the plane of her abdomen. She watched the way the muscles in her thighs shifted as she crouched, face intent as she rifled through the small chest holding her personal belongings.

“Here it is,” Helena said. She rose, eyes shining, and slid the record from its sleeve; the way she lowered it onto the gramophone was almost reverent. “Come dance with me, darling.”

Tomorrow, their little interlude was over. Tomorrow, Helena rejoined her squadron, and Myka didn’t like to think about the chances they had of ever seeing one another again. A bullet, a bomb, a misstep marking the space between life and death – neither was safe. She watched the invincible die every day.

In a world like this, promises were meaningless.

It was cold in the bare little room Helena had rented for her two week sojourn in London. The wooden floorboards creaked beneath her feet and the panes rattled in the window at each gust of wind. Myka could feel the chill seeping through the thin walls, and no matter how tightly she wrapped herself in the coverlet, she couldn’t shake it.

Helena didn’t seem to notice, standing nearly naked in the middle of the room. “One last dance before I have to go,” she said, hand outstretched. She was half in shadow, half in light, her smile both enigmatic and provocative.

Myka didn’t need to be reminded it was their last night together. She’d thought of nothing but this moment since it had grown inevitably close. Their romance had been whirlwind. It’d been the kind of thing the other girls talked about in hushed, yearning whispers, and now it was going to end.

When she didn’t move, Helena’s smile faded into melancholy. She gave in with a sigh. “Is this how it’s to be?” she asked, moving to stand beside the bed. She found Myka’s hand and tangled their fingers together loosely, her skin blazing with heat against Myka’s marble cool. “Across the whole of our lives, there exist only a few moments worthy of memory. You would deny this one?”

Myka turned to look up at her. The sheet was rough against her cheek, but she was tempted to turn her face into it to hide the tears blurring her vision. Music played softly in the background, the crackle and pop of the ancient gramophone nearly obscuring the words.

_//All around me are familiar faces_  
Worn out places, worn out faces  
Bright and early for their daily races  
Going nowhere, going nowhere  
Their tears are filling up their glasses  
No expression, no expression  
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow  
No tomorrow, no tomorrow// 

“Let’s run away together,” she said, her voice a whisper. Unable to resist the promise in Helena’s dark eyes, Myka slid from underneath the coverlet and into Helena’s arms. It wasn’t quite so cold, pressed so tightly to her. Beneath their shuffling feet, the floorboards creaked. The panes rattled in the window and the gramophone played on, but the world had fallen away. The needle reset itself as the song drew to an end, the silence between its ending and its re-beginning passing without notice.

Time slipped past without meaning. Helena looked up at her, eyes clouded. She blinked, as if trying to work out the counterfactual to an argument without reason. “I have responsibilities. I have a duty.”

Myka drew her closer, fingers digging into Helena’s flesh with unconscious roughness. “We’re just two people, Helena. The war will go on, with or without our assistance.”

“No.” The denial was strident, instinctive. Pain at the thought of abandoning her squadron twisted inside of Helena. “I’ve failed too many of the people who have depended on me. I won’t do it again.”

“So you’ll die instead? You’ll abandon me?” Myka’s expression hardened. “I’m not a lovestruck sweetheart happy to wait at home for her heroine to return. There’s nothing romantic about war, Helena. I’ve seen too much to be fooled. There are no fairytale endings.”

Suddenly cold, Myka pulled away. She pulled the coverlet from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, but any warmth it had held was long gone.

Helena scowled. “If you think a long life filled with shame is preferable…”

“I think a life lived with you is preferable, however long it might be.” Myka drew the coverlet tighter. The music stopped while the needle reset, the silence as stark as the distance between them.

“You ask too much of me.”

Unexpected anger filled Myka. “I didn’t ask for any of this, HG.” She paused, blinked, pushed down a fleeting feeling of unease. For the briefest of seconds, the moment didn’t ring true. She couldn’t believe she was in this small, bare room. She couldn’t remember the Helena looking at her with cold, dark eyes. Betrayal coated her every thought, and she felt so very tired. “I didn’t ask for you to talk to me. I didn’t ask for you to buy me a drink. I didn’t ask to fall in love with you. If you’d left me alone, none of this would have happened.”

“You can’t insulate yourself from the world. You can’t stand back and watch it pass you by.  Do you know what it’s like to live in stasis, Myka? I do, and it’s torture. If you’d trade the pain of life for the false comfort of disengagement, then you’re a fool.”

Although Myka had never really paid much attention to Helena’s RAF-issued sidearm, its presence in her peripheral vision suddenly became an inescapable irritant. The Webley Mk IV .38 was an ungainly looking firearm, its grip oddly elongated even when holstered. Had Helena always kept the gun there, on the nightstand? Myka couldn’t remember.

“You talk about your duty as if it wasn’t a choice,” she said, surprised that she’d drifted close enough to run her fingers over the canvas of the holster. The words felt metallic and false in her mouth, as if they didn’t fit. The gun was heavy and cold in her hand. “There’s always a choice.”

In the background, the song started again.

Helena was watching her coolly. “And what do you intend to do with that?”

Myka looked down and blinked, as if startled to see herself holding the gun. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m taking my life into my own hands. Maybe I don’t want to wait for fate to make that decision.”

“Fate,” Helena scoffed. “Haven’t you puzzled it out by now? No one’s weaving the cloth. Life is as capricious and cruel as it is wondrous. I’ve suffered loss greater than you could ever comprehend. I’ve watched as the person dearest to me was snatched cruelly away and I…” As if the thought had disappeared violently from her mind, Helena drew up short. Confusion flitted across her face. “You know, I’ve taken this record with me across the whole of Europe. I must have heard this song thousands of times, but I can’t seem to recall any of the words.”

As Myka listened to the haunting melody, she slowly lowered the gun to the bedside table. “Nothing about the world feels right,” she said. Tears, never far these days, burned in her eyes. “Can this be real? It doesn’t feel real. It feels like a nightmare that never ends. Maybe there’s no end to this war, Helena. Maybe there’s nothing to do but watch the world burn.”

As if Myka’s words had resonated within her, Helena wrapped her arms around herself protectively. “If you think that way, you’re lost. What’s the use of fighting if there’s no future?”

“And what if there’s not?”

For the first time that day, Helena shivered. “I see our future, Myka. I see us together. I see us happy.”

Myka wished she could see it too, but she couldn’t. Try as she might to envision happier times, she was left with the feeling that there were no better days to come. Come tomorrow, Helena would be gone, and she’d be back where she started. Helena didn’t understand what it was like to be the one left behind. She wouldn’t know what it felt like to wait and hope or to spend every day wondering if some other nurse in some other ward would soon be caring for the broken body of the woman she loved.

The song ended and Myka let the silence linger.

******

It wasn’t that it was hopeless, trying to run the investigation on his own. It was more that they’d just gotten started – had only been in Key West for a little over a day, actually – and now he had both too few and too many leads to follow all by himself. Time spent reviewing the security footage of the incident had been helpful, insofar as it provided him with a vague sense of who he might be looking for: someone who was not especially tall, not especially large, and prone to wearing hooded sweatshirts even in the midst of the south Florida heat.

He’d gone to Hemingway’s home, now a museum. He’d talked to the curator, examined every typewriter in evidence, and been attacked by an otherwise adorable six-toed cat, but had ultimately come away empty handed. There had been other typewriters, the curator had confirmed. One, a particular favorite of Hemingway’s, had disappeared at some point after his death in 1961. It was in photos but not in the collection, and no one had ever found any evidence of where it might have gone.

He’d arrived back at the hospital even more dejected than he’d been when he left.

If Myka and HG were unchanged, he couldn’t say the same thing for the atmosphere on the ward. There were new players and a new sense of urgency filled the air.

“Pete,” Dr. Vanessa Calder said, slipping into the room, clipboard under her arm.

He looked up, startled, then grinned. “Did Artie send you? Do you know how to fix it?”

“Artie told me what had happened,” Vanessa said, settling into a chair opposite him. She took out her clipboard and leaned forward, voice low. “Officially, I’m here as part of a four-person outbreak investigation team from the CDC. My colleagues think I’m interviewing you.”

Pete nodded, understanding the need to be circumspect. As part of her cover, Vanessa worked as a medical officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It put her in excellent position to be deployed on cases involving unusual medical mysteries, like a rash of unexplained comas leading to death.

“I’m running into a brick wall here, Doc,” he said, sitting back in his plastic chair with a deep sigh. “There’s not much to go on.”

“I think I might be able to help. On these kinds of investigations, it’s routine for us to map out where people have been on the days leading up to the onset of morbidity. Usually we’re looking for a specific food product consumed by each of the cases, a shared location from which their food was prepared, or a central gathering place common to them all.” Vanessa glanced down at her clipboard and idly checked a box, maintaining their fiction. “The other four cases each attended a fifteen year reunion for New Dominica High School a week prior to coming into contact with the artifact.” In her hand was a neatly folded piece of paper. “Here’s a list of the other attendees.”

“Right. Okay. So we’ve got a lead,” Pete said, taking in a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a moment, hands resting tiredly on his knees. “They’ve been like this all day. How much time do we have?”

Vanessa smiled with gentle sympathy – the physician’s smile heralding bad news. “All we can do is speculate. Some of the other victims have persisted for as long as an entire day.”

It was less than comforting.

“If anything changes…” he said, rising. His gaze lingered on Myka, so still and pale. If he lost her, he didn’t know what he would do.

“I’ll call you,” Vanessa assured him.

******

It was bitterly cold on the platform. People rushed past them on all sides, never coming close enough to touch. In the middle of the chaos, they were an island of deadly stillness. Over the loudspeaker, muted and ghostly, as if being broadcast from far away, music played.

 _//_ _This is the end_  
Beautiful friend  
This is the end  
My only friend, the end  
Of our elaborate plans, the end  
Of everything that stands, the end  
No safety or surprise, the end  
I'll never look into your eyes again//

Myka had her hand wrapped tightly around the lapel of Helena’s overcoat. Her voice and eyes were hollow, already expecting the denial she knew was to come. “So you won’t change your mind?”

Helena felt a sudden desperation grip her. Behind them, the train rumbled, smoke from its engine combining with the overcast sky to deepen the day’s pallor. Heavy clouds were threatening rain even as a gust of wind whipped angrily from the north, tangling her hair. She stretched up on tip-toe to kiss Myka softly, her arms tight around Myka’s waist. “Wait for me,” she begged breathlessly, the words nearly snatched away by the wind. “I will return to you.”

“I won’t.” Myka looked away. “I can’t. I can’t bear it. I’d rather forget you now than mourn you later.”

The train’s whistle blew, two sharp calls to action. It was time to board. Love or honor, Helena realized. She had to make a choice – fail many or fail the one she loved. “Once upon a time,” she said, cupping her hand around the back of Myka’s neck, “I thought myself irredeemable. I locked myself away from the world, but it didn’t right my wrongs. I made many choices, most of them wrong. Please don’t force me to choose again, Myka.”

Myka smiled sadly. “If I don’t protect myself, who will? You’re not the only one who’s lost someone, HG.” The words to the song playing in the background picked steadily at her concentration, and Myka had to focus to remember what she’d been intending to say. “There was someone before. He thought he could take care of himself, too, and he was wrong.”

The train whistled again – urgent, insistent – and Helena buried her face in Myka’s shoulder. The platform was emptying. Soldiers were disappearing onto the train and sweethearts were stepping back into the shelter of the station. Soon, they’d be the only ones left.

“Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life wondering?” Myka asked, lips by Helena’s ear. “When you get shot down over the jungle, when the government comes to tell me you can’t be found, am I just supposed to wait?”

The sense that she was being split in two hit Helena hard in the chest. It was like a hatchet blow, splintering her down the middle. “Over the jungle?” she repeated weakly, the words not quite right in a way she couldn’t place. She leaned back to look up at Myka only to find Myka looking down at her in confusion.

Over the loudspeakers, the music grew deafening.

“I… HG, are you…”

The train whistled shrilly, desperately. Myka pulled away fully and brought her hand to her forehead. She rubbed, as if trying to wipe away the cobwebs; from the train, darkened faces watched dispassionately. The train, she thought. The train that was going to take HG – was going to take _Helena_ – where? Where was it taking her? Off to war. Off to war, and if she left, they’d never see each other again. If she left, Myka would have nothing to live for. If she left, Myka would be better off throwing herself under the wheels of the train to end her pain.

“I’m feeling rather ill,” Helena said, arms wrapped around her belly. “I can’t quite recall how we ended up here. Can you?” She looked up at Myka helplessly, her voice pleading. “I don’t want to leave you, but I must. There are things I must do. Important things, though I fear I won’t return from them. I fear that once I’m away from you, everything will cease to matter, but I must go. You understand, don’t you? _I must go._ ”

Myka’s thoughts moved slowly. She felt off balance, literally and metaphorically. Helena was right. There was something vitally important at stake here, but the details were slipping away from her. “Where do you need to go?” she asked, suddenly needing desperately to know. She felt like she should, like she’d known only a second ago.

The music was so loud she could barely think.

“To war. I have to return to my squadron. I’m a writer,” Helena said, brow furrowed. “No, a pilot. I’m a pilot.” Her heart skipped painfully as the platform shifted suddenly beneath her feet. She looked down at the uniform she was wearing, at the muted blue gabardine fabric and winged insignia. “Aren’t I?”

“Your name,” Myka said, blinking hard, “is HG Wells.”

The faces on the train were gone. So were those that had been peering out at them from the station.

“No,” HG said, frowning. “My name is Helena, and I love you. If I leave here, I’ll lose you. I know I will.”

“No, you won’t.” Myka smiled sadly. At the edges of her vision, the world started to lose focus. “HG, I don’t think we belong here.” She looked up at the sky, her smile turning beatific, even as it started to rain. “You know, I think I know this song.”

******

Pete collapsed against the wall, a sudden rush of adrenalin leaving him shaking. Myka was awake, HG too. Vanessa was with them, and Artie and Claudia were on their way. No one was going to die today.

Except maybe Marshall Levi, if he tried anything funny. A handful of interviews from the people on the list Vanessa had given him, and Pete’s spidey sense had started tingling.

“He was always weird in high school,” his last interviewee had said. “He never really did fit in. I felt bad for him, actually. Kids can be cruel, you know. I guess he thought things would be different now that he was kind of successful, but I don’t really think anyone was impressed. So he published a novel? He wouldn’t shut up about it. I looked it up online. It’s like not even in the top 100,000 sellers on Amazon.”

Marshall Levi, whose grandmother Miriam Levi had been Hemingway’s housekeeper according to the museum curator.

It didn’t feel right to kick down a door and go in, Teslas blazing, without Myka by his side, but Pete had had a very bad day courtesy of one Marshall Levi and the way the wood splintered beneath his sole was intensely satisfying.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said, directing his Tesla at the disappointingly scrawny guy eating cereal in his underwear on the couch. “Make a move toward that typewriter and I will put you down. I’m not even kidding. I am so not happy with you right now, buddy.”

Marshall dropped his spoon, splashing milk onto his undershirt.

There was a definite sense of satisfaction to be found in putting his knee to the small of the guy’s back, Pete thought, as he put Marshall in cuffs. “You know what,” he said, glaring at the typewriter on the counter and bearing down just a bit harder, “I always like the movie better than the book anyway.”

******

Pete handed off the paper grocery bag containing the typewriter to Artie with a carelessness the other man didn’t appreciate.

“This is a dangerous piece of machinery,” Artie grouched, clutching the bag to his chest.

“Trust me, I know it.”

Myka was sitting up in bed, sipping gingerly at a glass of water, and he had to restrain himself from tackling her in a bear hug.

“Pete,” she said, smiling weakly.

His own voice was ragged with relief. “You had me worried, Myks.” He spared an acknowledging glance at HG then returned his focus to Myka. “I wasn’t sure the two of you would come back.”

“Yeah, well, you saved the day, didn’t you?”

He eased himself down on the mattress beside her and put his hand on her arm, just to reassure himself. “From what I understand, I think you saved yourself.”

“With your help.” She put her hand on top of his and gave it a squeeze. He watched as she looked over at HG and blushed gently. “It felt so real, Pete, but there were little things that weren’t right. Things that were out of place.” She paused, frowning. “No, things that were out of time. In the end, it was the music. There were other things, small things, but the music… It was always there in the background everywhere we went. I was so distracted by everything else that was happening that it took me a long time to figure out why it didn’t fit.” She looked up at him with an exasperated grin. “I didn’t even really realize what it was I was remembering until we were back – Pete’s Friday night movie marathons.”

In the background, HG made a surprised sound of sudden understanding. “Oh yes,” she said. “Those dreadful movies.”

“They were all from your movies,” Myka continued. “All of the songs. I don’t know how, but they must have been stuck in my subconscious.”

Pete’s grin widened; he felt lightheaded with relief. Myka was back, and he’d helped. He’d given her clues, and she’d followed. “That’s right,” he said, though the words lacked their usual boastfulness. “My impeccable taste in cinema saves the day again.”

Myka punched him weakly in the shoulder even as HG groaned.

“So where’d you guys go?” he asked, slowly feeling the tension of the day start to seep away. “Deep sea fishing? Bull fighting?”

Myka looked at HG once again. This time, her blush was florid.

“London,” she said, eyes focused steadfastly on her bed linens. “It was the war – World War II.”

Vanessa stepped forward, expression curious. “How interesting. Did you have a shared dream? I’d love to talk to you about what happened while you were unconscious.”

Myka’s sudden coughing fit was so violent that Pete had to pour her another glass of water. “Not much,” she said finally, her voice little more than a wheeze. “We just hung around town mainly. I kept busy with my job most of the time.”

“Of course you did,” Pete said, smiling fondly at her. “Who else do you know who could slip into some kind of psychedelic coma and dream of going to work?”

“I was a pilot,” HG interjected, somewhat disgruntled by her lack of involvement in the conversation. “I was quite dashing.”

Claudia, who had been uncharacteristically silent up until then, murmured an impressed, “Sweet.”

“And that’s all?” Vanessa pressed curiously. “Nothing exciting happened?”

Myka remembered lying on a picnic blanket, staring up at bare branches while Helena moved against her. “No,” she said, the word strangled. “Not really.”

Although Vanessa didn’t look entirely convinced, she let the matter drop. “We should probably let you rest,” she said, shooting the room’s other occupants a significant look. “You’ve been through quite the ordeal.”

Pete looked at her dubiously. “They’ve been sleeping all day.”

“They’ve been in a coma all day,” Vanessa said archly. “There’s a very meaningful difference.”

“And I’ve got to get this back to the Warehouse,” Artie said, the paper of the bag crinkling as he once again tightened his grip. Although his words were all business, his expression was soft. “It’s good to have the two of you back.”

Claudia rolled her eyes. “Don’t let him fool you. He was totally freaking out all day.”

“Says the girl who nearly had a nervous breakdown approximately every thirty minutes.”

“It’s okay,” Myka said, more for Pete’s benefit than for anyone else’s. “I’m kinda tired. We’ll be fine. Go rest. Come back and get us in the morning when they let us out.”

Pete looked at her anxiously. “Are you sure? I can stay.”

“I’m sure.” Her smile belied her next words. “Now, enough. Everybody out.”

“I’ll be back at eight o’clock sharp,” Pete promised. “Maybe nine. Ten at the latest.”

It was several minutes more before the room was finally empty. As soon as Pete finally departed, Myka sighed, murmured, “I’m going to get some sleep,” and rolled over onto her side, studiously pretending she was alone.

******

Myka was awoken from a light and fitful sleep by the awareness that someone was standing over her.

“HG?” she croaked, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the dimness.

HG looked painfully uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot in her thin hospital gown. “I was hoping we could talk,” she said, her voice so soft Myka had to strain to hear it above the sound of the machines at her bedside.

“Right,” Myka said automatically, swallowing hard. She’d been trying to avoid it earlier, but of course it was fruitless. Of course they’d have to talk. You couldn’t share a soul-consuming love affair with someone while under the influence of an artifact and then just simply pretend it hadn’t happened. “Okay.”

HG settled daintily into the plastic chair Pete had occupied earlier. “You do remember, don’t you? You remember what happened?” she asked, voice uncharacteristically uncertain.

Although she thought briefly about lying, about denying everything, in the end, Myka nodded.

“It may have happened, but it wasn’t real, of course,” HG said, a trace of wistfulness in the words. “I know that, but I recall it all in such vivid detail. How I felt, how we…”

Myka’s mouth was painfully dry. “It was the artifact.”

“True,” HG reached out hesitantly, her grip on Myka’s fingers light, “but perhaps there was an element of us in there as well.” Her eyes dropped and her voice softened. “I didn’t want to leave you. Knowing that I had to was tearing me apart.”

“I didn’t want you to go,” Myka admitted. She moved slowly, flipping her hand so that she was palm-to-palm with Helena. The touch was both thrilling and terrifying, and she was surprised that she’d done it. “But, Helena, it wasn’t real.”

Helena gave a half-shrug. “Perhaps not.” Even in the dim light, Myka could see her blush. After a long moment, Helena looked up at her, gaze suddenly unwavering. “But, you see, you’re more dear to me than you realize.”

She watched as Helena visibly screwed up her courage. When she moved to kiss her, Myka let her.

It was soft and unhurried, and when Helena deepened the kiss, Myka returned it in full.

It was more than a beginning, Myka thought, bringing her hand up to cup Helena’s cheek. After everything that had happened, it felt more like a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Pete's movie marathon (and songs):
> 
> 1\. Repo Men – Every Day Will Be Like a Holiday x William Bell  
> 2\. Watchmen – Sound of Silence x Simon & Garfunkel  
> 3\. Donnie Darko – Mad World x Michael Andrews & Gary Jules  
> 4\. Apocalypse Now – The End x The Doors


End file.
